Longtime Penguins star Crosby on trade rumours: 'That's the hard part about losing'

Sidney Crosby doesn't blame anyone for the chatter.

The Pittsburgh Penguins superstar captain knows his team is one in transition. The three-time Stanley Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medallist knows fans, and media, enjoy speculating about potential landing spots should he ever decide time is up in the city where he's spent his entire 20-season career.

That doesn't make it any easier to hear.

"I understand it. It's not something that you want to discuss," Crosby told a small group of reporters this week at the NHL/NHLPA player media tour at a luxury hotel on the Las Vegas strip. "You'd rather be talking about who we're getting at the [trade] deadline or where we're at [in the division playoff race].

"That's the hard part about losing. I think everybody thinks that the losing is: the buzzer goes, you lose the game, and that sucks. But there's so much more than that.

"It's the turnover, it's the unknown, the uncertainty, the question marks. That's the stuff that's tough."

Crosby remains at the top of his game at age 38. The Penguins, meanwhile, look to be a long way from contending. All those years of trying to climb hockey's playoff mountain, including the organization's Cup victories in 2016 and 2017, along with grinding to get back by shipping assets out the door for veteran talent, left the club's cupboard bare.

Fellow franchise icons Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang also remain in Steeltown, but age is starting to show.

That's not the case with Crosby, who finished 10th overall in scoring last season with 91 points (33 goals, 58 assists) across 80 contests and is set to captain Canada at the 2026 Olympics in Italy as the NHL returns to the Games after a 12-year hiatus.

The Penguins, however, have missed the